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British Synonymy; or, An Attempt at Regulating the Choice of Words in Familiar Conversation. 2 vols
Johnson’s friend Hester Piozzi—better known by her earlier name, Hester Thrale—offers a series of mini-essays, each a few pages long, exploring subtle shades of meaning in clusters of similar words. We have loud, noisy, clamorous, turbulent, stormy,…
The Spelling and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language.
Was the Rev. John Bentick a real person or the invention of his canny publisher? Alston’s bibliography of English dictionaries questions authorial authenticity in the index: “bentick, John. [Fictitious?]” Whatever the answer to that mystery, his book…
A Dictionary of the English Language, Answering at Once the Purposes of Rhyming, Spelling, and Pronouncing. On a Plan Not Hitherto Attempted
Johnson’s friend John Walker wrote a dictionary on “a plan not hitherto attempted.” And what was that? Given that “in other dictionaries words follow each other in an alphabetical order according to the letters they begin with, in this they follow…
An Accurate New Spelling Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language
Ann Fisher married a printer, Thomas Slack, and together they published the Newcastle Chronicle. She issued a series of educational books, including a grammar and An Accurate New Spelling Dictionary—the first English dictionary by a woman. Her…
The New Spelling Dictionary Teaching to Write and Pronounce the English Tongue with Ease and Propriety
Entick is known in legal circles for successfully suing the British government for pillaging his house, thereby establishing a legal right of privacy. His New Spelling Dictionary complains that earlier lexicographers suffered from either “unnecessary…
Linguæ Britannicæ Vera Pronunciatio: or, A New English Dictionary
Buchanan sought to fill a void with a pocket-sized dictionary—smaller than Bailey and the abridged Johnson, “portable for the use of schools, and as a vade mecum for grown persons . . . either for the orthography, signification, accent, just…
An Universal Etymological English Dictionary
Despite Johnson’s importance, his magnum opus didn’t put an end to competition. Posthumous editions of Bailey continued to appear for decades. This one, prepared by the physician Joseph Nicol Scott, shows real improvements on Bailey’s definitions. A…
Fifty-pence coin commemorating Johnson’s Dictionary
After musing “the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman,” Johnson was competing with the national academies of Europe. His Dictionary was a national accomplishment. Exactly 250 years after the Dictionary was published, the nation paid him back…
A Dictionary of the English Language . . . Abstracted from the Folio Edition. 2 vols
Although Johnson’s huge Dictionary was a scholarly triumph, it was a commercial flop. Few bought it—no surprise, since its £4 10s. cost was 15% of a typical family’s annual wages. Hence the publishers tried the expedient of “abstracting” two huge…